Editor’s note: This story has been updated to remove an incorrect reference.
Mira Sorvino’s advocacy during the #MeToo movement and her tireless fight for justice for human trafficking survivors earned her the honor of receiving the Woman of the Year award from the Women’s Image Network.
Over the past 20 years, she’s used her voice to advocate for change and helped create new legislation to protect people from sexual harassment and violence.
The Oscar-winning actress was one of the first people to speak out against the sexual misconduct of Harvey Weinstein. She believed her career was severely hurt by dismissing his constant sexual advances toward her.
The disgraced Hollywood mogul is currently standing trial for rape and sexual assault. Sorvino said she’s “definitely paying attention to it, but not glued to it.”
“It’s very triggering and re-traumatizing for me. I find it horrific that his defense is using these outdated tropes, you know, slut shaming and saying that it was a consensual transactional casting couch. He was a sexual predator of epic proportions, a very violent assault,” she revealed to KTLA 5’s Sam Rubin. “I personally know people who have been raped by him, and there was nothing consensual about it.”
“There was certainly nothing consensual about the times that he tried to force me or would coerce me into having a sexual relationship with him. I said no. This was not something that he wanted to be a two-sided street. I just managed to wiggle my way out of it, and paid for it with my career.”
The “Mighty Aphrodite” actress is back to work and now stars in a biopic about the lifelong feud between Lamborghini and Ferrari.
“Ferruccio Lamborghini is one of Italy’s most famous and beloved innovators … Anytime I get to go to Italy and portray someone there, to get to portray his wife, Anita, it’s a great honor. It sort of touches on something inside myself, about my own roots connecting to a culture that is really so genetically ingrained in me,” she said.
“Lamborgini: The Man Behind the Legend” is out now in select theaters also on-demand and digital.